then he deliberately dropped the lighter into his pocket. He lifted his hat and then turned and began to move slowly away.
‘Wait…’
Val got to her feet. She was wearing pale blue beach pyjamas, and she looked slim and lovely as she moved out of the umbrella’s shade into the sunlight.
Hare paused. They faced each other.?‘That lighter… I think I’ve seen it before,’ Val said unsteadily. ‘May I see it?’?‘Why certainly, madam,’ Hare said. He came dose to her. She could feel the heat coming from his vast body and she could hear the wheezing of his breathing. ‘This lighter?’ He took the lighter from his pocket, turned it so the inscription showing and held it out to her.
Val stared at the lighter, then she looked sharply at Hare.?‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘This belongs to my husband. Where did you get it from?’
Hare studied the lighter as if he had never seen it before, then he walked heavily to the shade of the umbrella. With a stifled grunt, he lowered himself down on the sand.
‘It is some time Since I have been on a beach,’ he said, staring across the wide expanse of sand. ‘It’s very pleasant. My wife, who has been dead now for some years, used to be a beach lover.’
Val stared down at the top of the yellow Panama hat, her heart beating rapidly. There was something about this gross old man that frightened her.
‘I asked you where you got that lighter,’ she said in a tight, strained voice.?‘The lighter? Oh, I found it.’ Hare tilted his head so he could look up at her. ‘Won’t you sit down, madam?’
Where did you find it?’ Val demanded, not moving. ‘So it belongs to your husband,’ Hare said musingly. ‘How is he today?’
‘Will you please tell me where you found it.?‘Dear madam, don’t be impatient with a feeble old man,’ Hare said. ‘Do please sit down. You wouldn’t force such a heavy old fellow like myself to remain on his feet, would you?’
Val dropped on to her knees. She felt something bad was coming. She could tell by the sly, simpering smile and the beady staring eyes that this dreadful old man wouldn’t be hurried.
There was a long pause, then Hare said, ‘You are Mrs. Christopher Burnett?’?‘Yes.’?‘I understand your husband is in a sanatorium?’
Val’s hands turned into fists, but she managed to control herself to say, ‘Yes.’?‘He disappeared from the hotel a couple of days ago and was found by two policemen?’ ‘All this was reported by the newspapers,’ Val said. ‘What is it to you?’
Hare lifted a fistful of sand and let it run through his fat fingers.?‘I don’t wonder that children love to play on a beach,’ he said and chuckled. ‘Perhaps I’m getting senile. I wouldn’t mind having a bucket and spade right now.’
Val said nothing. She regarded him with growing horror.
‘It seems Mr. Burnett had a black-out,’ Hare Continued after a long pause, ‘and he has no idea what he did during the night of the 18th.’
Val felt a cold shiver run down her spine. There now seemed no heat in the sun.?‘This must be very worrying to you, madam,’ Hare went on and gave his sly little smile. ‘Even when wives have normal husbands, they worry when they don’t know where they have been, but when they have abnormal husbands, the worry is even greater.’
Val! said, ‘Just what do you want? I’m not going to listen to you much longer. What is it?
Where did you get that lighter?’?Hare took from his billfold a newspaper Cutting.?‘I would be glad if you would glance at this, madam,’ he said, offering the cutting.
Val took it suspiciously. It was a brief account of the finding of Sue Parnell’s body at the Park Motel, Ojus with an interview with Police Chief Terrell who said it was obvious that the killer was a sexual sadist.
Val let the cutting flutter from her cold fingers.?‘I don’t understand,’ she said.
Hare took the lighter from his pocket.?‘This lighter, belonging to your husband, was found by the murdered woman’s body… a woman savagely murder by a lunatic.’
He peered at Val and he was uneasily surprised to see that, the impact of his words had no apparent effect on her.
‘Obviously my husband lost the lighter and this killer found it.’?‘Charming to have such faith in an unstable mind,’ Hare said more roughly than he intended. ‘I think the police would have other ideas.’
Val got to her feet.?‘Then we will ask them. You are coming with me. We will see Captain Terrell and you will tell them what you are hinting at.’
‘Mrs. Burnett, we mustn’t be impetuous,’ Hare said, not moving. He tossed the lighter into the air, caught it and then put it in his pocket. ‘Your husband wore a sports jacket when he left the hotel. When he was found, the jacket was missing. Happily for you both, I found it.’
With a quick movement, he got rid of the string around the brown paper parcel and produced the jacket. He spread it out on the sand. ‘These stains, madam, come from the ripped and murdered body of Sue Parnell!’
Val stood like a frozen statue, staring down at the coat she immediately recognised as the coat Chris had been wearing on the terrace, a few minutes before he had disappeared. She looked at the ugly rust coloured blotches that covered the front of the coat. She felt her knees sag and very slowly, she collapsed on to the hot sand.
Hare watched her with the false sadness of a mortician. ‘I’m very sorry, madam,’ he said gently.
‘Very, very sorry. It would seem that your poor husband ran into this unfortunate woman, and in a moment of complete madness, murdered her. This puts me in a very serious position … I…’
‘Stop it, you vile old fake!’ Val screamed at him. ‘I won’t listen to you! Go away from me! Go away!’
Startled, Hare looked quickly over his shoulder and was relieved to see that there was no one close enough to have heard Val’s outcry.
‘Well, of course, if that is what you wish,’ he said with great dignity. ‘I never impose myself when I am not wanted. Then you want me take this heavy responsibility and go to the police with this terrible and damning evidence?’ White faced, her eyes burning with fear and anger, Val stared at him.
‘What else are you suggesting?’?‘I have been struggling with my conscience,’ Hare said mildly. ‘Yours is a very well-known family. Your father is one of the most important men in the country. I felt I had to see you first before I went to the police. I thought you and also your father would not wish for your husband to be tried for the murder of a worthless prostitute, found guilty and put away for life behind the walls of a State Criminal Asylum. I felt the least I could do would be to talk to you and see if that is what you really wanted. It seemed to me that these two articles of deadly evidence could be destroyed and then no one but you and I would be any the wiser. That is why I have taken the trouble to come here this morning to consult with you, but if you would really prefer me to do my obvious duty, then regretfully, I will do so.’
Val sat still, her hands in her lap, her face white. She remained like that for some moments, then she said quietly, without looking at Hare, ‘I understand… how much?’ Hare drew in a deep breath of air into his fat larded lungs. A nasty moment, he thought, but he had handled it well.
‘A half a million dollars, madam.’ he said gently. ‘It is a reasonable sum. When you think what you are getting in return, it is a paltry sum.’ He took his card from his billfold and dropped it close to Val. ‘I will give the lighter and the jacket to the police at six o’clock this evening… at precisely six o’clock. Unless, of course, you telephone me before then.’
He re-wrapped the jacket, heaved himself to his feet. Then raising his hat to Val, he walked away across the san leaving big, widely spaced footprints behind him.
CHAPTER SIX
Terrell looked up from a mass of reports he was reading as Beigler came into his office. As Beigler sat down and reached for the can of coffee that permanently stood on Terrell’s desk, he said, ‘Nothing so far. We’re still checking the list of her boy friends. We’ve reached number fifty-seven: so far they all have cast-iron alibis.’
Terrell shrugged.?‘They could all be in the clear, but we can’t afford to miss out on one of them. It’s my
